Tentacled Horror: Armbars

Today’s post will be about a series of progressively more exotic armbars. They all start from the same side-control position and are surprisingly easy to do once you figure out how to spin when your opponent tries to escape or counter. These techniques are all done with a gi, so the no-gi variations are left as an exercise to the readers.

Knee-trap pass
Your opponent is on his back with his feet in your hips while you have the bullfighter grip on his knees. Throw one knee between your legs and squeeze them together to trap his leg. Simultaneously slide the leg that is between his leg across his hip until the knee touches the ground outside his hip while posting out far with your other leg. As you do this, come down and underhook his far side while going chest-to-chest with him. The posting leg drives your weight into him and the underhook prevents him from taking your back. If he escapes his hips your foot just slides out from between his legs and you’ve now passed. Otherwise, slide that leg through and go to kesa gatame while pulling up on his near arm. Finally, switch your hips to put your top elbow into the side of his head and bottom elbow underneath his far armpit while putting your top knee next to his head and extending your bottom leg out away from him. When I say “top” and “bottom” I am referring to the distance relative to his head. All your weight should be on his head and near shoulder and your bottom leg way too far for him to catch and get his guard back.

Since all your attacks are launched from here I took the extra time to MSPaint it for you:

Near-side armbar
The first option for attack is the arm resting on your top hip. Reach your top arm back and slide it between his arm and your thigh, then throw it over to the other side of his face. With the same arm, reach under his arm and grab your own bottom lapel. Pop up onto him with your bottom shin across his chest and hook your foot under his shoulder while your top leg goes over this head. Sit back and squeeze your knees with boths hands on his wrist to complete the armbar.

Far side reverse armlock
Now we start to get fancy. Drop your hips into his shoulder while reaching under his far arm with your bottom hand and grabbing your top lapel. Go up on your toes as you drive your hips into his shoulder, then pop up onto him as in the previous technique EXCEPT this time you don’t hook your foot under his near shoulder. His far arm should now be on your bottom shoulder and his near arm still resting on your top thigh. Sit back and tighten your legs and slide your forearms up his tricep to his elbow, then push down and lean your head toward his legs to complete the armlock.

Slithering armlock counter to hip escape
So you sit back to start the previous technique and the opponent starts escaping his hips to relieve pressure on his arm. He has just unwittingly summoned a crawling octopedal monster, manifest in your next armbar. Take your bottom hand off his elbow (keeping your top hand on it) and post it behind you. Now, here comes the difficult part: You must rotate towards that bottom arm while your top foot comes around to hook underneath his far shoulder, and you must stay tight enough for that foot to touch your butt. Meanwhile, your bottom foot hooks underneath his near shoulder (in the armpit) to control that arm. You are now resting on your former top shoulder, entangled around his upper body. Bring your other hand to his wrist and extend to complete the armbar.

Note that if you do all of the hard part at the same time, you can start extending as you spin around the arm and he will be screaming when you land on the mat.

Spinning armbar counter to gojitsu
As you sit back for the reverse armbar (2nd technique) he explodes up to a standing position, powered by the hatred a hundred wrestlers and samboists have for you and your Emperor. Basically, you are on your back and still wrapped around his far arm with your opponent standing and trying to free himself. Reach for his leg on the same side of the trapped arm and spin on your shoulders to orient yourself for the standard armbar from guard against a standing opponent. IMPORTANT: At no time to you release your legs from his upper body. He will escape. As you spin you must keep pulling down with your hamstrings and re-hook a foot under the armpit of the trapped arm while putting the other over his head. That’s only one way; I’m pretty sure I came up with a few more ways to trap the upper body during the drill. Once you are in the correct position you can pull on the leg and sweep him down to the ground, but no one had any trouble finishing the opponent as they remained standing.

The last move translates fairly poorly to text, but if you remember to grab the leg on the same side as the trapped arm the rest should fall into place.